Genesis 1:20-31

PART SEVEN: THE LAST THREE DAYS OF THE COSMIC WEEK OF BEGINNINGS

Genesis 1:20-31

The heart of the Genesis Cosmogony is that all things have been brought into existence by the Supreme Creative Will, acting either directly (primary causation) or through the agency of forces and materials of His own creation (secondary causation). God created, God said, God called, God saw, God made, God blessed, etc. The name of God, Elohim, occurs forty-six times in the first two Chapter s of Genesis. The facts that God wills it means that He is Absolute Sovereign over what He has created; that He rules, determines, and brings to their pre-determined ends all the ages (Isaiah 44:6); that He is sovereign over all aspects of the cosmos, including life, man, society, peoples, and even the destinies of individuals and nations (Acts 17:24-28, Jeremiah 18:5-10). God before all, God back of all, God over all: God's creative Word is the Efficient Cause of the existence, and continuance in existence, of all things. God Himself is without beginning or end, the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega, the Self-existent Living One.

Every process of the cosmos is divinely willed; every good end is divinely designed and ordained. Hence the living and true God is personalan Other to all other persons. He is the sovereign God, transcending the cosmos and independent of it. He is the personal, sovereign, rational and moral Divine Being. He is over all, and through all, and in all (Ephesians 4:6). There is not the slightest room here for pantheism or deism. This is theism in its most exalted form. Deuteronomy 6:4Yahweh our God is one Yahweh, that is, the only Yahweh (I AM, Exodus 3:14). I am God, and there is none like me (Isaiah 46:9). I am the first, and I am the last: and besides me there is no God (Isaiah 44:6; Revelation 1:8; Revelation 1:17-18). This is monotheism of the highest order.

The sublime facts to which the Genesis account of the Creation points directly is that the Eternal God, who is Spirit (John 4:24), is the God of creation, of revelation, of conscience, of judgment, of redemption, of the ultimate restoration of all things (Acts 3:21).

When Elohim began the Creation, He made things, one might well say, in the rough. He created the heavens and the earththe ancient Hebrew way of saying the entire cosmos. The Spirit of God moved in the darkness of the great deep, preparing it for all that was to follow. One basic truth of the entire Genesis account is that in the six great days of creative activity, this activity pointed unfailingly to the crown of the Divine handiwork, man; in them all things necessary to human existence were marvelously wrought. How long it was from the first stirring in the primordial deep until God said, Let us make man in our image, we do not know. We can readily see, however, that the account allows for the vast ages, and the processes taking shape throughout, as envisioned by present-day geological science.
Perhaps it should be added here, parenthetically, that the geological theory of uniformitarianism, namely, that early geological processes were the same as those now empirically discernible (or, as Hutton put it, that the present is the key to the past, and that, if given sufficient vastness of time, the processes now at work could have produced all the geological features of our planet) simply could not apply, in any great detail, to the first beginnings of the lands and seas that go to make up our earth. It seems obvious that the elements had to be brought into existence in their proper interrelationships in order to effect planetary beginnings and to establish the more advanced planetary processes and changes.

As we have noted, Day One of the Hebrew Cosmogony witnessed the first manifestations of energy, of matter-in-motion, and the creation of light. On Day Two the firmament was brought into being, giving us such necessities of human existence, as the surface waters, the intervening atmosphere, and the sky above with its clouds. On Day Three, earth and water, apparently one conglomerate mass up to this point, became separated, so that the earth took its proper form, with continents and seas being formed, and with vegetation beginning to clothe the hitherto bare land. On Day Four it seems that the vapors enveloping the newly formed planet were gradually dissipated, so that sun, moon and stars became visible, to be divinely appointed as standards for human measurement of time. Cornfeld (AtD, 5): Thus God made the world's time, which is the framework of history, for He is the Lord of history.

Throughout the rest of the Genesis Cosmogony, the writer, while noting that there are divinely graded kinds of living beings, puts supreme emphasis on the moral and spiritual character of the cosmos, and its dependence upon its Creator (God saw that it was good, Genesis 1:4; Genesis 1:10; Genesis 1:12; Genesis 1:18; Genesis 1:21, etc.) and especially upon the towering significance of man as a moral agent and the lord tenant of the whole Creation.

It seems significant indeed that in Genesis 1:21, we find the Hebrew verb bara used the second time (cf. Genesis 1:1) in the account of the Creation. We have noted heretofore that this verb denotes a real primary beginning: it means that something new, some new increment of power, is being introduced into the creative process. Hence, we find in the section we now take up (Genesis 1:20-23) the account of the advance from the unconscious being of the plant to the conscious being of the animal, the awareness that comes from sense-perception and locomotion, the powers that specify the entire animal creation. Because of this fact, I have chosen to make this the breaking point between the two sections of the Creation narrative.

REVIEW QUESTIONS ON PART SEVEN

1.

What is said, in this text, to be the heart of the Genesis Cosmogony?

2.

Distinguish between primary and secondary causes.

3.

Cite Scriptures which teach theism and monotheism in their purest forms.

4.

What is the theory of imiformitarianism? Why is this theory not applicable to the creation of lands and seas?

5.

Review what happened on Days One, Two, Three, and Four of the Creative Week.

6.

What was created on Day Five?

7.

What advance in the Creation is indicated in Genesis 1:20-23?

8.

According to Genesis in what environment did animal life begin? What does biology teach about this?

9.

On what ground does Lange account for the beginning of animal life in the water and in the air?

10.

What are the two characteristics in particular which distinguish animal life from plant life?

11.

List the principal events of Day Six of the Creation.

12.

Explain the import of the metaphor, River of Life.

13.

Explain what is meant by the mystery of the Life Movement.

14.

Name and define the cellular processes.

15.

List Skinner's threefold classification of animals.

16.

What are the two naturalistic theories of the Origin of Life?

17.

Explain what is meant by abiogenesis.How did the Church Fathers regard this theory? What is the status of the theory today?

18.

State Augustine's theory of seminal reasons (seminal causes).

19.

Explain what is meant by the Will to Live.

20.

State clearly Aristotle's theory of the Hierarchy of Being.

21.

What particular still unsolved problems are pointed up by Aristotle's theory?

22.

What was the Great Chain of Being theory? In what great poem is it set forth?

23.

What change in the formula of the Divine decree occurs in Genesis 1:26? What does this change emphasize?

24.

State the theories of Creation suggested, by Cuvier and Lotze.

25.

What theories have been suggested as explanations of the us in Genesis 1:26?

26.

What is the only explanation of the us which harmonizes with the teaching of the Bible as a whole?

27

What is the special significance of the credo of Deuteronomy 6:4?

28.

By what Names is the tripersonality of God indicated in the Old Testament? What is the full revelation of these Names as given in the New Testament?

29.

What is the significance of the use of the verb bara in Genesis 1:27?

30.

What is the meaning of the term, creation absolute?

31.

What are the phenomena which mark off the successive levels in the Totality of Being?

32.

What is the significance of the metaphor, the Breath of Life?

33.

What is the special import of God's very good in Genesis 1:31?

34.

Why cannot the terms image and likeness of God refer to corporeal likeness?

35.

What is, in all likelihood, the specific import of the phrase, image of God, as descriptive of man?

36.

In what special sense was Jesus the very image of God?

37.

Does the phrase image of God indicate that man is in some sense deity?

38.

In what sense is man the representation of God in the Creation?

39.

What special significance has personality with reference to God?

40.

What is the significance of the distinction between the Oriental doctrine of absorption, and the Biblical doctrine of fellowship, as the destiny of the person? Which of these is the doctrine of personal immortality?

41.

What is the import of the terms male and female as used in Genesis 1:27?

42.

What was the twofold Divine blessing pronounced upon mankind at the beginning (Genesis 1:28)?

43.

What evidence have we that God does not look with favor on concentration of population?

44.

What is meant by the statement that God vested man with lord tenancy over the whole of nature?

45.

How is this lord tenancy connected with man's stewardship?

46.

What are the three categories of truth?

47.

On what ground do we assert that human science is the fulfilment of God's command that man should multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it?

48.

By what five fundamental truths does the Genesis Cosmogony affirm the glory and dignity of the person?

49.

What reasons do we have for asserting that all subhuman orders were created for man's use and benefit?

50.

What general objections to this view are urged by skeptics?

51.

Would you not agree that if our conviction is not true (that the world was created for man's use and benefit), the only alternative view would have to be that all existence is meaningless? Explain your answer.

52.

Restate the argument presented herein, in answer to the question, Why a Creation at all?

53.

Explain the significance of the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25:41.

54.

Would you say that Genesis 1:29-30 indicates that God originally intended only a vegetable diet for man?

55.

What conclusion do you reach by comparing these verses with Genesis 9:3?

56.

What is the meaning of good as used in these verses?

57.

What is the special significance of God's very good in Genesis 1:31?

58.

State the various explanations of the Scripture which tells us that God finished his work on Day Seven.

59.

In what sense, evidently, did God rest on Day Seven?

60.

What is the probable significance of the absence of the customary formula (used in preceding verses to indicate the termination of each Day's activity) from the story of Day Seven?

61.

How do the words of Jesus in John 5:17 throw light on this problem of God's rest?

62.

What is a prolepsis? Cite Scripture examples of prolepsis.

63.

Show how Genesis 2:2-3 is obviously a case of prolepsis.

64.

What is the reason given for God's hallowing of the seventh day of the week instead of some other day?

65.

What special event was the Jewish Sabbath appointed to memorialize (according to Deuteronomy 5:15)?

66.

Where in the Pentateuch do we find the account of the first observance of the Jewish Sabbath?

67.

Explain the significance of the sequence of events of the eight-day period described in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus.

68.

Why, evidently, do we find no record of the observance of the Sabbath in the book of Genesis?

69.

Why does the Sabbath have no significance for Christians?

70.

What day do Christians observe and why? What is it called in Scripture?

71.

What analogies exist between the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Lord's Day?

72.

Summarize the arguments for the general interpretation that Day Seven of the Creative Week is one of indefinite duration.

73.

Show how Tayler Lewis correlates the language of the Fourth Commandment with this interpretation.

74.

Show how Whitelaw effects the same correlation. Cf. Rotherham's view (as given earlier in this text) and that of Archer (as stated directly above).

75.

List other evidences of the ambiguous use of the Hebrew yom throughout the Old Testament.

76.

Show how Genesis 1:31 sets the optimistic motif which runs throughout the entire Bible.

77.

List the correspondences between the Hebrew Cosmogony and present-day science.

78.

Explain how this correspondence is especially true of the order of Creation as given in Genesis and as held by the most recent science.

79.

What bearing do these facts have on the doctrine of the special Divine inspiration of the Genesis Narrative of the Creation?

80.

Show how the Order of the Creation as given in Genesis harmonizes also with the facts of human experience.

81.

Restate our objections to the reconstruction and cyclical theories, respectively, of the cosmos as applied to the Genesis Cosmogony.

82.

Explain what is meant by plant photosynthesis and why the process is of such great importance.

83.

Review the general Order of the Creation, Day by Day, as set forth in Genesis 1.

84.

What is the special significance of this Order? To what does it necessarily point?

85.

Explain the difference between theoretical atheism and agnosticism.Is there any practical difference between the two views?

86.

What is pantheism, and what are the main objections to it?

87.

Define deism, and state the objections to it.

88.

Define materialism and state the objections to it.

89.

Define dualism and state the objections to it.

90.

Explain what is meant by emanationism.State the objections to it.

91.

What, in a general sense, is naturalism?

92.

Distinguish between humanitarian humanism, egoistic humanism, and Biblical humanism.

93.

Define polytheism.What was its most fundamental characteristic?

94.

Define monotheism.How is it related to monism?

95.

Define henotheism.

96.

State the fundamental characteristics of theism. What are the chief attributes of the Biblical theistic God?